1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to semiconductor manufacturing and more particularly, to brokering fault detection data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manufacturing processes, particularly semiconductor manufacturing processes, generally include a large number of steps, referred to as process steps. These process steps use a number of inputs that are generally fine-tuned to maintain proper manufacturing control.
The manufacture of semiconductor devices uses the discrete process steps to create a packaged semiconductor device from raw semiconductor material. The various process steps, from the initial growth of the semiconductor material, the slicing of the semiconductor crystal into individual wafers, the fabrication stages (deposition, etching, ion implanting, or the like), to the packaging and final testing of the completed device, are different from one another and specialized, thus the process steps may be performed in different manufacturing areas or locations that contain different control schemes.
Generally, a set of processing steps is performed on a group of semiconductor wafers, sometimes referred to as a lot. For example, a process layer composed of a variety of materials may be formed above a wafer. Thereafter, a patterned layer of photoresist may be formed above a wafer. Thereafter, a patterned layer of photoresist may be formed above the process layer using known photolithography techniques. Typically, an etch process is then performed on the process layer using the patterned layer of photoresist as a mask. This etching process results in formation of various features or objects in the process layer. Such features may be used for a variety of purposes, e.g., in a gate electrode structure for transistors.
The manufacturing tools within a semiconductor manufacturing facility typically communicate with a manufacturing framework or a network of processing modules using a common architecture such as common object request broker architecture (CORBA). Each manufacturing tool is generally coupled to an equipment interface. The equipment interface is coupled to a machine interface to which a manufacturing network is coupled, thereby facilitating communications between the manufacturing tool and the manufacturing framework. The machine interface can be part of an advanced process control (APC) system. The APC system initiates a control script, which can be a software program that automatically retrieves the data needed to execute a manufacturing process.
To decoupled applications from implementation details, CORBA specification defines an Object Request Broker (ORB) interface that provides various helper functions such as converting object references to strings and vice versa, and creating argument lists for requests made through a dynamic invocation interface. The ORB provides a mechanism for transparently communicating client requests to target object implementations. An ORB is a logical entity that may be implemented in various ways such as one or more processes or a set of libraries. The ORB simplifies distributed programming by decoupling the client from the details of the method invocations. Thus, client requests appear to be local procedure calls. When a client invokes an operation, the ORB is responsible for finding the object implementation, transparently activating the implementation if necessary, delivering the request to the object and returning any response to the caller.
Some manufacturing tools may not conform to an architecture such as CORBA. In such cases, it may become important to communicate with devices which conform to the architecture.